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Changing the Constitution
realistic or false, but to recognize the frailty of constitutional government, the need for constant vigilance, and the primacy of the amending
process as a device for protecting the constitution from unauthorized, illegitimate alterations of the basic design.
Amending the Constitution
‘‘We must all obey the great law of change,’’ declared Edmund Burke. ‘‘It
is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation. All we can do, and that human wisdom can do, is to provide that
the change shall proceed by insensible degrees.’’ Like Burke, the Framers
of the Constitution understood that not all change is reform. A constitution cannot long endure if it may be amended too easily or too swiftly.
Nor can it be expected to survive if it cannot be changed at all; for a constitution cannot be preserved if it cannot be altered to correct errors in the
document or meet the needs of society. The Articles of Confederation
were probably doomed from the start because they required the unanimous consent of the States before any change could be made.
The procedures to be followed for amending the Constitution, as we
noted in our discussion of federalism, are laid out in Article V. The Framers believed that the method adopted was a vast improvement over that
prescribed by the Articles because it achieved a balance between permanency and change and thus assured the continuity of the Constitution.
‘‘The mode preferred by the convention,’’ observed Publius in Federalist
No. 43, ‘‘seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards
equally against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its
discovered faults.’’ Another virtue of the method selected, he added, is
that it ‘‘equally enables the general and the State governments to originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by experience
on one side, or on the other.’’
Both Congress and the States may initiate amendments, but only the
States may ratify them. An amendment can be proposed by a two-thirds
vote of both houses of Congress or by a national convention called by
Congress at the request of the legislatures of two-thirds of the States.
Once an amendment has been proposed, it must be ratified by the legis-